CE ns Pa

i 74 THE PANELLED HOUSE.

think they enhance by treating all outsiders with
contempt; happily, however, it is a weakness
which usually wears off when they grow a little
older, and, like the hen who took pity on the ugly
duckling, find that the world is larger than they
thought, and takes in all the next field.

The worst of this little grievance was that it
rankled in Flora’s mind, and made her dislike Nest
more than she had done. Flora was not worse
than many other people, but as she could not be
said to Rave any very active good principle in her
mind ‘to counterbalance her own inclinations, her
dislikes were very strong. She said that she was
“a good lover and a good hater,” but if her love
and hatred could have been gauged by any known
measure, I fear that the love would have lost the day.

In May came Nest’s eighteenth birthday, and it
had been the custom at the Panelled House, almost
ever since the children had come from India, that
the birthdays of the three young ones, which all
came between May and October, should be kept,
if the weather was propitious, by a day at the
seaside. The nearest point of the coast to Lyke
happened to be a pretty little fishing-hamlet, at
present unfrequented by visitors. Red Cove was
its name; it was a mere cluster of cottages at the
mouth of a little ravine between two high cliffs, with
asandy beach, The young Williams’ always thought
it the most charming place under the sun, and
would have liked to spend months there instead of
a day, had there been any place to house them.

Nest had been very busy writing a fairy tale,
which was to be read on the beach to Winny and her
aunts. This was part of the regular programme of
the day: it had begun years before, when Nest at
nine years old had taken the historical line, and
had described a family of children who all died of
the plague from over-eating themselves with cherrics,
except one, the virtuous heroine, who had refused
the cherries, and had been rewarded by being made
into a maid of honour to the queen of Charles II.
Nest’s stories were still severely moral, but a course
of Fouqué and Andersen had modified the in-
cidents which she recorded, and her imaginative
power had developed.

This time, however, a novelty was to be intro-
duced. The Misses Rivers and their nieces were to
drive over to Red Cove early in the morning, to
spend the whole day as usual: but Colonel Armyn,
hearing of the plan, had begged to be allowed to
join them in the afternoon, riding over with Escott
and Flora. Nest would have liked his company
without theirs, but it could not be avoided, and the
proposal was acvepted. She grumbled a little to
Winny, who comforted her by saying that they
could haye their bathe and their story in the
morning as usual, and that it would not do to
grudge the Armyns this very small pleasure.

The day was bright and warm, and at nine)

o’clock they set off, Winny driving the old pony—
her great delight. She was so fond of horses and
dogs as rather to scandalize her aunts, who looked
upon such tastes as indicative of fastness. Indeed,
with less refined surroundings, Winny might have
been fast, though her tact would always have kept
her from any outré proceedings, unless she had
fallen a victim to that desire of shocking her elders,

Ee 9
which injures some girls so much. But on this

occasion it was most satisfactory that Winny could
drive, as five grown people would have been an
over heavy load for the pony, and the hostler at
the little public-house at Red Cove could do all
that was wanted in harnessing and feeding it.

Under the green trees, through the green bowery
lanes, beneath the bluest of skies, they trundled
along, Wirtny chattering and Nest singing as
they went. Winny was a mimic, and, like a
mocking-bird, she could sing like other people
without having any style peculiar to herself. She
gave a specimen of Flora singing “The Danube
River,” and Mr. Heydon “ The Stirrup Cup :” also
of a mild youth from Erconbury whom she had
heard sing “Take back the heart that thou gavest”
in a very timid voice at a dinner-party. Aunt
Hermy shook her head, but laughed at the girl’s
fun, and Aunt Immy, though she was ostensibly
reading a book, showed by the working of the
corners of her mouth that she was not fmpervious
to the waves of nonsense that flowed round her.

At last they reached Red Cove: put up the)

pony, and marched down to the beach carrying an
arrangement of poles and a great sheet, which
when ingeniously set up in the sand, made a
bathing tent sufficient for dressing arrangements
for the two girls. Thence they issued after a
time, arrayed in blue serge, for a delicious plunge
and duck in the clear fresh water, while the small
fisher-children stood on the rocks round, watching
the “ladies who swam like ducks,”
aunts sat on the beach, like hens in charge of the
same ducks, to watch lest they should stay in too
long.

Glowing, rosy, and hungry, they emerged at
last from the tent in their ordinary costume, and

fell upon large pieces of cake from Aunt Immy’s |

basket with excellent appetite. After which they

sat in the sun to rest; and then Nest was called on |
for her story, which came out of her pocket in a |
neat white roll daintily tied with blue ribbon. “It |

is called ‘The Mist King,’” she announced in that
shy tone in which young authors usually give
forth their own works: “ and I had a meaning to
it when I wrote it, but I don’t know whether any
body will find it out.”

“We will guess when we have heard it,” said
Aunt Hermy.

and the two |